Stan Lee: How Spider-Man Came Into Being

In this short, heartfelt talk, comics legend Stan Lee tells the true (and hard-to-believe) story of how Spider-Man was created. He recounts being asked by his publisher to invent a new superhero, spotting a fly crawling on a wall, and landing on the idea of a wall-crawling, web-slinging teenager with real-world personal problems. His publisher rejected the idea outright, so Stan quietly slipped Spider-Man into the final issue of a dying magazine, Amazing Fantasy. When the sales figures came back, the character was a runaway hit. Lee turns the anecdote into an inspirational message: if you have an idea you genuinely believe in, don't let anyone talk you out of it, and always do your best work by doing what you want, the way you think it should be done.